Announcement

ESOcast 56: Gentle Giants in the Desert

29 April 2013

For our newest ESOcast, we pose this puzzle: how do you move a 100-tonne giant ALMA antenna 30 kilometres up onto the oxygen-starved Chajnantor Plateau, 5000 metres above sea level and finish the job with millimetre precision?

Thankfully we have Otto and Lore, the cutting-edge ALMA transporters. The numbers are staggering: 20 metres long, 10 metres wide, weighing 130 tonnes each, housing two blistering 700-horsepower engines and capable of reaching 20 kilometres/hour; Otto and Lore are moving megastructures.

More than just gigantic workhorses, Otto and Lore are also triumphs of precision — gently moving parts of the world’s largest astronomical project into place to a hair’s breadth precision.

To watch these gentle giants in action, follow the link to ESOcast 56.

More Information

The ESOcast is a video podcast series dedicated to bringing you the latest news and research from ESO — the European Southern Observatory.

Subscribe to our video podcast now to keep up with the latest news from ESO: the ESOcast is available via iTunes in HD and SD. It’s also available on YouTube, Vimeo and dotSUB and is offered for download in several formats including HD.

Links

About the Announcement

Id:ann13036

Images

Screenshot of ESOcast 56
Screenshot of ESOcast 56

Videos

ESOcast 56: Gentle Giants in the Desert
ESOcast 56: Gentle Giants in the Desert